Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you must work for the WWE. Fool me thrice, I’m a loyal fan, okay? Keep fooling me, now shame me, daddy. That’s how I feel about every Bray Wyatt gimmick. I tried telling everyone: curb your enthusiasm for Wyatt’s big return because I guarantee it’ll be more of the same. Every single incarnation of Wyatt has been a nonsensical promo, followed by thrown together nonsensical feud, and ending in nonsensical bullshit.
This version of Wyatt had shown some potential. He comes out in the beginning and talks “as himself,” even though it’s obvious that he’s still talking in character by a script, but it at least had some meaning other than what was on the surface. But then, it devolved quickly into more Wyatt nonsense. He was being “himself” being haunted by a version of himself that wasn’t really himself and is being played by someone else but it’s meant to be himself but not really because they’re in the same ring at the same time and oh my god I’ve gone cross-eyed.
First, Bray Wyatt returns dressed as Uncle Howdy. He’s wearing an Uncle Howdy mask. It’s Uncle Howdy. There’s zero doubt that the person under the mask is Uncle Howdy. He takes off the mask, and it’s Bray Wyatt. Okay, so Bray Wyatt is Uncle Howdy.
Except no, because in the coming weeks, Bray is tormented by videos of Uncle Howdy taunting him into being his “true” monster self. These videos have Uncle Howdy changing from just a mask to full prosthetics, which is pretty cool. But the costume becomes cheaper until finally it’s just a cowl and everything else is gray paint. Everyone is pretty sure that Uncle Howdy is Bo Dallas, even though, again, Uncle Howdy was revealed to be Bray Wyatt’s alter ego from the very beginning.
Finally, we have segments where Uncle Howdy and Bray Wyatt are in the ring together. They’re two different people. People are convinced that this is going to be a big unmasking. It’s for sure Bo Dallas. All of this is leading to some kind of big storyline where we find out who Howdy really is and why this is all happening.
Only, no. What people are discovering is that this IS the storyline. Uncle Howdy is just Uncle Howdy, regardless of who is under the mask. He’s an alter ego of Bray Wyatt who also happens to be played by someone who is not actually Bray Wyatt and sometimes he runs in during Bray’s segments to help him the same way Damien Priest runs in during Finn Balor matches. That’s it. No, that’s literally it. Stop thinking it’s deeper than that because it’s not.
Meanwhile, the debut of Bray Wyatt had a whole song and dance where the Fire Fly Funhouse door was unlocked and all the Funhouse puppets escaped, revealing themselves to be fully fleshed-out people. The Firefly concept was no more and the insanity had been released! Were these all wrestlers? Is this a stable? Is this the beginning of the Wyatt 6 that had been rumored for weeks? Yes! And no! And really just no! This led to literally nothing. Every now and then we’ll see the puppets pop up in segments or the life-sized versions will appear here and there to lurk around, but aside from any actual tangible worth, there’s nothing there. They do nothing. Also, we still get Firefly Fun House segments, so why did we have a whole scene where they were unleashed? It makes no sense, and no, it’s not that I’m being impatient. There’s just no reason and there was never meant to be one.
The less said about Alexa Bliss’s contribution, the better.
This isn’t a slow burn angle. This IS the angle. It’s not going anywhere big. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t being written week by week. There’s no endgame. Hell, Bray Wyatt put on an impromptu mask during his match with LA Knight, and he was NOT being the Fiend. He was just being Bray Wyatt With A Mask-Guy. You remember him, right? Remember when Bray Wyatt would put on a mask real quick and become an unstoppable monster? REMEMBER? No, of course, you don’t, because that’s something I literally just made up on the spot. Except it’s actually not, they really did do that and I just lied to you. That’s how absurd it is. If you hadn’t been following the Bray Wyatt junk, you’d believe me when I said I made it up because that’s how terrible it is.
Once the bell rings, you get the most mediocre Bray Wyatt match you could ever expect. They try to mask how meh this guy is by having theatrics during his matches like turning the lights out or bringing in wacky-sized weapons, but once you start to break it down it really is just Bray Wyatt. Once that bell rings, you know you’re getting a typical Bray Wyatt match and that’s why he’ll never replace The Undertaker as WWE’s residential cartoon character.
This Bray Wyatt gimmick gets a 4/10 from me, and that’s being generous because it still may accidentally stumble into something interesting. I mean ACCIDENTALLY. Like this angle may slip on a Scooby Doo-esque banana peel and crash face-first into something that catches my eye unintentionally.